SILVER SPRING, MD – Last week, staff from the Planning
Department and Department of Parks translated cash into a new streamside forest
at Reddy Branch Stream Valley Park as part of a mitigation program that
requires property owners to contribute to a forest replacement fund.
The Reddy Branch
stream feeds into the Rocky Gorge Reservoir, one of two drinking water lakes on
the northern border of Montgomery County. Restoring streamside forest will help
improve Reddy Branch, long identified as having marginal water quality, as well
as create valuable habitat.
The planting was paid
for from a forest mitigation fund established when the Forest Conservation Law
went into effect in 1992. When Montgomery County property owners request
approval to subdivide or develop 1 acre or more, the Planning Board requires
them to protect or plant forests on site, in keeping with the conservation law.
Property owners who
can neither save nor plant forests because they are limited by density and
location pay into the fund, which has grown steadily. The Reddy Branch planting
demonstrates how the fund will be used in other environmentally
sensitive areas around the
county.
The one-acre forest created
last week was planted with native trees and eventually will total 6 acres. High
school students will be enlisted as part of the Department of Parks Weed
Warriors program to remove invasive vines and other plants that threaten tree
survival. Members of the nonprofit group Patuxent River Keepers plan to continue
maintaining the site with volunteers to ensure the forest will survive and
thrive. The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission helped coordinate the volunteer
groups.